Category: Drama Queen


That rule is, “If it’s free, take it.” This rule has led to some interesting situations, as you might imagine, but basically since there’s no such thing as a free lunch, when an actual free lunch comes around, I’m eating it.

That didn’t sound good. Oh well.

So earlier this week, I saw a free David Byrne concert in Prospect Park. I figured that was my freebie quota for a while. Possibly for the rest of the summer. But no! Because today I was reminded that Shakespeare in the Park starts, and as every New Yorker knows, that shit is free! It’s also a royal pain in the ass to get tickets to unless you don’t have a job, because traditionally, you get up at the butt-crack of dawn to line up by the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park, and even then, no guarantees that you’re going to get those tickets (they give two to each person standing in the right part of the queue).

Except! Last year someone at The Public (Theater, for those of you who don’t live here) apparently thought of us working stiffs stuck in offices all day and invented a Virtual Line. You sign up between midnight and 1 PM of the day of the performance, then log back in between 1 and 6 PM that day to see if you’ve gotten tickets. Today, I figured “What the hell, it’s the first show of the season, let’s see if I can get in.” I also figured I had a snowball’s chance in hell of getting in, because I tried a couple of times last year and it never worked out. But today, today my friends, it worked. I signed into the line at 12:55 PM, then checked back at 1:05 PM and I had tickets! So tonight, rain or shine, I am going to see Twelfth Night with Anne Hathaway and Audra McDonald. I’m jazzed! And hoping for no rain. Cross your fingers for me, will you? Because those chairs are open to lightning, and I would like to make it to Sage’s 8th grade graduation tomorrow intact.

I didn’t make any resolutions this year. As the first few days of 2009 progressed, I was cool with that. I mean, I always break the damned things anyway. Also, one of the girls in the next office gave up chocolate as one of her New Year’s Resolutions (I didn’t think resolutions were supposed to be like Lent, but what the hell. Also, she’s Chinese. She doesn’t do Lent. So maybe her resolutions can be like Lent.), and every time I ate a mini-Twix from the bowl they have in their office, I was thankful I hadn’t done anything like that. Chocolate, good. Resolutions, bad.

And then I spent Wednesday night and all day yesterday at the Under The Radar festival at the Public Theater. Jordana and I were doing what we called the “soft launch” of our notforprofit, which is going to be a producing company that offers developmental and artistic support for artists. Basically, we’re going to find some artists we feel really passionate about (we’ve already got two) and give them whatever support they need to make it, whether that’s fundraising or strategic planning or dramaturgy or whatever. We spent that time at the Public plugging ourselves to some very important people in the theater community and spreading the word that we were looking for artists to work with. We got a really positive response, and while we’re going to be there this weekend as well drumming up some more business, I feel like we got something great started. Everything we’ve been talking about for the past couple of months became real to me in the last 48 hours.

Yeah, so what does all of this have to do with resolutions? This morning when I woke up, my mind was buzzing with creative ideas and parts of my brain were working that I thought had atrophied. You know, the creative/theatrical part. The part I trained for years, and then kind of abandoned because I got a day job to pay the rent. I was in a great mood, I was happy with myself, I got to work and was all set to keep that creative buzz going, and then work intruded. Work and insurance and all that fun shit.

This afternoon I started thinking that I don’t need to make resolutions. I just need to set a goal. That goal is that we are going to make this company work and it will eventually rescue me from my day job. Maybe not this year, maybe not even next, but eventually this company of ours is going to be my ladder out. I just have to keep that goal in sight. I have to focus on working out that creative side so it doesn’t atrophy again. I think I can keep to it. I need to keep to it. As Barack says, I need to be the change I want to see. The change is coming.

Back in 2003, I had a membership with TDF (Theatre Development Fund). TDF is very cool because it offers tickets to various shows at a discount – a substantial discount if you snag a ticket to a Broadway show from them. You can only become a member if you are a full-time student, full-time teacher, union member, senior (62 or over), civil service employee, staff member of not-for-profit organizations, performing arts professional, or a member of the armed forces or clergy, and you have to send in proof to join. I think when I joined I sent them my business cards from two theaters. At any rate, I let the membership expire and occasionally thought about renewing, but figured it would be too expensive or too much of a pain in the ass or something like that.

Last night while watching the Tonys, I decided there were a bunch of shows I wanted to see. This morning, I decided I was going to renew my TDF membership. I had kept my original email from them in my work email, so I still had my password, and inside of five minutes and $27.50 later, I am again a TDF member and can go to see Cry Baby for $36. Sometimes I seriously wonder why I blow things so far out of proportion. If I would have just checked the damned TDF website, I would have renewed the membership years ago. *facepalm*

Today I make a lot of you jealous by saying that tonight Rick and I are going to see Patrick Stewart in his sold-out run of Macbeth at BAM. Because is there anything better than Patrick Stewart performing Shakespeare? Well, there is, and here is where I let you know that sometimes I get jealous, too. The Ex took the Oldest to see this production last week, and afterwards they went out to dinner…with Patrick Stewart.

Dude, there are days when after I get over the fact that my complexion has turned an alarming shade of pea green? I wish the Ex would just adopt me.

In preparation for our little theatrical mime-stravaganza “Everyone’s An Asshole” next Monday (details will be up next week for anyone who wants to see it), I went out and bought 45 pieces of poster board on my lunch break. Poster board in large quantities? Heavy and unwieldy. Really looking forward to the commute home this evening. In the rain. Not. (Nothing like a little Wayne’s World quote to get you through a rainy Friday, says me.)

Jordana and I are off to Rick’s this evening and then to Rhinebeck tomorrow morning. If you’re going to the blogger meet-up there, I’m going to be wearing my yellow and white Steelers cap and will be accompanied by a tall beautiful woman with dark hair (Jordana) and the cutest baby in existence. If we miss you at the meet-up but you see us wandering around the grounds? Stop us and say hi! We’re looking forward to seeing everyone!

Thing I should be doing today: reading those last 8 scripts I came home with yesterday. Of course, I should have done that yesterday as well, but didn’t. I wanted to knit or spin or read Harry Potter. Instead I sat on the couch and watched a lot of America’s Next Top Model and Rescue Me. I figured that was a good compromise.

Today, I don’t want to compromise. Part of me wants to do what I did throughout school – read a bit of what I had to, and then wing it once I got to class (the nomination meeting, in this case). However, this won’t fly because dammit, these men will want to discuss our nominations. Feh. I will have to figure out another work around.

In the meantime, cleaning the house is looking good. Oh, and going to Barnes & Noble to spend the $50 gift card I got. And going to the local fruit stand to buy fruit. And spinning and knitting and playing on Ravelry. Hmmm. I might have to compromise again.

ETA: Compromise today obviously means “screw with the blog template,” since my old Regulus one decided to crash and burn. Feh.

I made it through two and a half scripts last night.  I anticipate finishing that half and getting through another one at lunch.  Which means only three scripts between now and Friday, and I’m pretty sure I can get that done tomorrow.  Dude, I am so going to Stitch n Bitch tonight.  All work and no drunken knitting with friends makes Julie a dull, dull girl.

I slouched into work today with seven scripts on my back.  After work, I will drag my script-laden ass into the city, trade those seven in for another seven, and slump home beneath my burden.  I figure I will have to do this again over the weekend, and by that point I will have read roughly 40 scripts since I started this at the beginning of July.  There are 50 scripts in the pool of nominees we have to cull from, so I figure that if I read 40 of them, and someone else read 40 of them, and the third person on the nominating committee read all 50 of them because he’s the literary manager at the theater and that’s his job, we should be in good shape.  Our goal is to provide the committee that actually selects the winner with nine scripts to decide from.  Surely from the 40 scripts I’ve read, I should be able to find 3-5 scripts that I like, right?

I am reminded of why I was never interested in the literary management side of dramaturgy, though.  New scripts are fine.  (Well, some of them.  Some of them are really godawful.)  But if you’re the lit manager, you’ve got to read all the scripts that come in, and that is a lot more than 50.  That’s hundreds of scripts, and a fair amount of them are going to blow.  The 50 that I’m reading from are supposed to be the cream of what’s come in this past year.  Some of them are excellent.  Some of them…I wonder how they got into this pile.  The past three weeks of my life have been mostly devoted to script reading.  Sure, I got one weekend of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and I had been re-reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix while reading the scripts, but the script reading has put as serious halt on my leisure time.  It’s like having homework all over again: if I’m not reading scripts, I feel like I should be reading scripts, and the guilt, it hangs over me while I watch America’s Next Top Model reruns.

On August 2, we have our nomination meeting and after I get out of that I will be like a kid in a candy store.  I’ll get my knitting time back!  I’ll be able to sit down and read all the Harry Potter books back-to-back, notebook in hand, so that I will be able to remember exactly when in Harry’s Hogwarts career what happened.  I will be able to sit down and watch everything that’s been backing up on my TiVo, including many episodes of ANTM, Rescue Me, Doctor Who, and yes, even a few episodes of Hey, Paula (I likes me a tranwreck in the making, okay?).  I may even finally set up Savvy Brooklyn so that Jordana and I can sell all the damned jewelry we’ve made.  And that would be awesome, because hey!  More money for beads!!

So basically, August 3 is when school’s out for me.  I now remember why I was so happy when I finished grad school.

Name the movie that title comes from.

Rick and I were watching Letterman the other night when Steve Martin was a guest.  Steve Martin proceeds to tell a story about having to be the one to introduce playwright Arthur Miller for an award.  As I think everyone knows, Arthur Miller was married to Marilyn Monroe.  Steve says that as part of the intro, he was planning a joke that went something along the lines of “Which of these playwrights does not belong in this group: William Shakespeare, Edward Albee, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Steve Martin.  The answer is Arthur Miller, because he is the only one who slept with Marilyn Monroe.”

The audience is laughing heartily at this one, but Rick and I look at each other aghast and say “Ooooh, Arthur would hate that!”  Which is exactly what the punchline of Steve’s joke was, that Arthur Miller was dead silent when he ran the joke past him ahead of time.

I looked at Rick and said “Obviously we have spent too much time in the theater…everyone else was laughing and you and I were scandalized.”  Yet another reason we’re made for each other.

Accomplished:

- made friends with Maynard the cat.
- bowled 104. Followed by a shite 80. Win some, lose some.
- set land speed record on a toboggan with Youngest.
- several chats with Rick’s mom.
- much quality time with my Weet Boy.

To Do:

- grocery shopping
- laundry
- clean apartment
- cat proof bathroom
- pick up new cat friend for Joe
- go to reading
- print out final draft of script for rehearsals this weekend
- spend more time with Rick

At Work:

-five million degree audits
-don’t kill stupid students asking the same question over and over again
-list of June candidates for graduation to Publications
-list of candidates for Retroactive graduation to Faculty Council
-get set for the six massive lists that go to Faculty Council next month
-proof galleys for Commencement program for Publications
-answer questions Publications has about said galleys
-don’t kill stupid students calling all day long about degree audits I haven’t been able to finish because of stupid phone calls

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